Wednesday, August 28, 2013

The Grandmaster Review

Wong Kar-wai’s “The Grandmaster” is a movie I respect more
than I actually like. In this summer of one generic, CGI heavy action movie
after another it’s refreshing to see something as graceful and beautiful as
Kar-wai’s film, which captures the spirit and style of old fashioned,
choreographed martial art movies. There’s no CGI and no buildings are destroyed.
What a relief. The picture tells the real life story of legendary martial art
master IP Man (Tony Leung), who’s perhaps most known for teaching fellow martial
arts icon Bruce Lee. The movie begins in 1930’s Foshan China. The city is split
into a northern and southern martial art clans and this first part of the movie
follows IP Man’s confrontation with a northern grandmaster Gong Yutian
(Qingxiang) and his romantic encounters with Yutian’s daughter Gong Er (Zhang
Ziyi, as fierce as always). However, due to the Second Sino-Japanese war IP Man
had to flee to Hong Kong, and so the movie picks up in 1950’s where IP Man
teaches at a martial arts school.

Aside from this strong sense of Chinese history, the other
major factor that informs “The Grandmaster” is a strong appreciation of martial
arts. Watching the movie you can tell that Kar-wai has the utmost respect for
them, not just for IP Man’s preferred style Wing Chung but for multiple forms
and he gives each one its due time. As already stated “The Grandmaster” is a
gorgeous film, mainly because it has some of the best looking action in any
movie so far this year. Kar-wai uses quick cuts and slow motion (common
characteristics of American action movies) but unlike a lot of American action
films these days he doesn’t use them to disorient us or make us seasick.
Instead, he uses the techniques to emphasize the brutal, fluid beauty of these
martial art forms, as well as the intricacy that goes into them. Kar-wai stages
them more like ballets than fight scenes. He achieves a gracefulness that’s
hardly ever seen in American action movies. This again goes back to this
immense appreciation of martial arts apparent in every frame of the picture.

However, probably the best thing about “The Grandmaster” is
that even though it is a martial arts movie Kar-wai doesn’t overwhelm us with
one fight scene after another. During the opening confrontation—in which we see
IP Man face off against a large group of thugs during a heavy rainfall—I rolled
my eyes and thought to myself: “Oh great, how many of these are we going to
have?” Turns out that’s the only massive confrontation we see. Kar-wai uses the
fight scenes sparingly, so we’re not completely exhausted by the end. Each
confrontation has some kind of weight or significance behind it and that’s the
most effective way to use action in any movie, American or not. And more often
than not it’s the non-violent confrontations that leave a greater impression.
For example, when IP Man goes to face Yutian we’re expecting a five or six minute
fight but instead it turns out to be an exchange of philosophical ideas instead
of fists. We don’t see it coming and so it turns out to be far more effective
and special than just having the two men duke it out physically.

Now comes the hard
part of this review. While I admired the movie’s craftsmanship it still suffers
from one major flaw, which is that Kar-wai doesn’t fully develop IP Man’s
character. I have nothing against Leung (who gives a stern and assured
performance) but after watching the entire film I didn’t learn very much about
IP Man, which is peculiar considering the movie spans two decades or so. Even
with this massive time frame, Kar-wai fails to provide us with a comprehensive
picture of IP Man’s life and none of the individual chapters of his life that
are emphasized feel fully elaborated. On top of that, the narrative (what
little there is) relies on far too much voice over narration and information
cards. In the end the movie is more about Gong Er (the two encounter each other
again in the 1950’s) and her quest to avenge her father’s death and restore
honor to her family. That’s all well and good but it’s still told from IP Man’s
point of view and so her character doesn’t feel fully established either. I
realize that other IP Man movies have come before this one so maybe Kar-wai
would have been better off focusing on one specific portion of his life, like
when he starts mentoring Bruce Lee.

Wong Kar-wai cut three different versions of “The
Grandmaster,” the original Chinese cut is two hours and twenty minutes, the
second version (which appeared at the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival)
runs two hours and three minutes and finally this version (distributed by the
Weinstein Company) is the shortest at an hour and forty eight minutes. I
haven’t seen either the Chinese cut or the Berlin Film Festival cut but I think
the American version could have benefited from being longer. As it is right now
this version is beautifully crafted and I still have respect for what Kar-wai
is trying to do, but at the same time it’s lacking in both character
development and story telling.